Description: Your Genre Analysis will be a close reading or analytical essay focused on one of the primary texts assigned for class reading. You may refer to other texts, but only as a means of illuminating something about the one you take to be your focus. Your final draft will be 1500-1800 words, and cite at least two of the secondary sources included with the weekly assigned readings. Many of the secondary readings can be used to comment on texts they were not assigned alongside, so take your time going through the slides or readings from every class to find the scholars whose thinking best suits your analysis.
This is the prompt; Tatiana Korneeva uses the concept of “mimetic desire” from the French philosopher Rene
Girard to describe the relationships between the Beast, the Merchant, and Beauty in Beau-
mont’s “Beauty and the Beast.” Working with Korneeva and at least one other scholar or critic, explain 1) what Korneeva is talking about when she talks about mimetic desire and 2)
how this concept can be used to help readers understand the relationships between characters
and the motivations of characters’ behavior in one of the literary texts we read in this class.
This is a list of conventions, I mainly used mimetic desire.
List of Fairy Tale Conventions
Poetic justice
• “Happily ever after”
• “Rags to riches”
• bad characters are punished and good characters are rewarded
Animal transformation
• The relationship between humans and animals dictated by use
• A binartistic hierarchy with the category “rational” on top
• The possibility of a relationship that is not defined by hierarchy
Mimetic desire
• An object is desirable to a person because it is desirable to another person whom that
person has chosen as a model. The model acts as a mediator between the desirer and
the desired, but he or she also becomes an obstacle and rival in the subject’s quest for
the object.
• what are the objects triangulating…
• the relationship between the Beast and the merchant?
• the relationship between Beauty and her sisters?
• the relationship between the protagonist of “Tiger’s Bride” and her father?
• the relationship between the protagonist of “The Way Back” and the white
mother?
The exchange of women between men
• “damsel in distress”
• marriage is an economic transaction between men rather than an emotional
relationship between men and women
• how is this convention subverted in…
• The Way Back?
• Bluebeard?
• Fitcher’s Bird?
• “Sorry” Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea?
Dialectical Appropriation
• The process by which oral tales are appropriated from folk communities and
translated into literary fairy tales by bourgeois or middle-class writers.
• how are oral traditions represented in…
• Tiger’s Bride?
• The Way Back?
• “Sorry” Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea?
Don’t do this in the Genre Analysis:
1. Use sophisticated language to create the illusion of complex thought
2. Summarize plot
3. Make arguments about the feelings of an audience or a rhetor
4. Make arguments about how the text relates to your personal life
5. Use strange diction to make your work exciting
6. Refer to broad universal truths or tropes—“growing up is confusing,” “love is complicated,” “children are curious”
7. Use a five-paragraph essay structure of introduction-body1-body2-body3-conclusion
8. Bend your analysis to a preconceived thesis
Do this in the Genre Analysis:
1. Use simple language and attend to your interests on the most specific level possible
2. Focus on the meaning of your chosen text on the level of the sentence and word
3. Make an argument about how constructions in language and manipulations of convention create your impression of the text
4. Make an argument about how the text reflects or responds to details of a specific social-historical context
5. Use consistent terms to make your work easier to follow for your reader
6. Attend to the construction of what seems to be universal or “common sense”—aging, love, childhood—in your text
7. Let the structure of your essay follow your analytical process–think one paragraph per idea
8. Let your thesis evolve over the course of your drafting process, and write an introduction to describe your analysis when you’re
finished
9. Reread every one of your sentences out loud, and imagine saying one each
of those sentences to a friend. If you think your friend would be confused as
to what you mean if you said a sentence in conversation, your reader will be
confused as to what you mean when reading your work. Rewrite your
sentences with clarity as a high priority.
These are the secondary sources I used and would like you to focus on; Jack Zipes’ “Breaking the Disney Spell” from Maria Tatar’s Introduction to the Norton Anthology of Classic Fairytales and Desire and Desirability in Villeneuve and Leprince de Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast” by Tatiana Korneeva (both are attached)
This is the primary source; “Beauty and the Beast” by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7074/7074-h/7074-h.htm
These are other secondary sources that my Professor provided that I didn’t use
“A Different Logic” by Caroline Webb and Helen Hopcroft
“The Fairy-Tale Web” by Cristina Bacchilega
“The Most Romantic Story Ever Told” by Aimee Bender
“A Review of Vanessa Angélica Villarreal’s Beast Meridian” by Joy Priest
These are other related readings that you can use but as the instructions say should only be used as a means to illuminating the one I am focusing on (Beaumont’s “Beauty and the Beast”) so please don’t focus on them
Angela Carter’s Unicorn
Tiger’s Bride by Angela Carter
The Way Back by Villarreal
Bluebeard by Charles Perrault
Fitcher’s Bird by Brothers Grimm
“Sorry” Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea by Helen Oyeyemi
This is the advice I received from my professor;
The first sentence is good but needs to be more specific in the final draft
“The fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast is widely known now as Disney’s Beauty and the
Beast. According to Jack Zipes’ “Breaking the Disney Spell” the popularity of the Disney film
over the original fairy tales is related to the concept of dialectical appropriation which “robs the
literary tale of its voice and changes its form and meaning.” (344). ”
Commentary–which is a long process that the disney movies belong to, but by no means end
“Fairy tales were originally a
means to critique society but in Disney’s “version” of the tale the plot loses its lesson and instead
reinforces sexist ideas. ”
Commentary– not necessarily, doesn’t beauty and the beast reinforce sexist ideas? doesn’t bluebeard?”
“As Korneeva stated “mimetic desire” is when one person
wants what another has only because they are treasured by the person who possesses it.”
Commentary–does the first person have a peculiar relationship to this person?
“Beaumont is criticizing this patriarchal society for allowing men
to use women as they please. Beaumont is also pointing out how easy it is to think you are in
control but as Judith Butler stated Beauty is only trying to, “work the trap that one is inevitably
in.” (Artforum, 1992).”
Commentary—-where in the text does she make this critique?
some good work with conventions and thinking with secondary sources, but not quite coming together in a reading of the text yet. Looking forward to discussing how you can expand this work in conversation with Beaumont.
I was also told this is important to do
One Key to Analysis
● What is the thing?
○ A short and practical description or summary of the moment in the text you want to examine
more closely.
● What is the interesting thing?
○ Direct your reader to the component of the moment in the text you are talking about that
makes it worthy of closer examination.
● What is interesting about it?
○ Explain what becomes apparent about this component part of the text upon further
examination and how.
● Why is it interesting?
○ Explain what you have gained from reading this component part of the text so closely.
● Why would you direct someone’s attention to this thing to better understand
the text as a whole?
This is what my professor helped me create after meeting with them and this is also what I was advised to follow for this final draft;
Progress- Disney, Critique, Sexism
What is the thing?
In her position, as an obedient daughter, Beauty makes a choice to sacrifice herself to the beast in her father’s place.
What is the interesting thing?
Despite being in a vulnerable position, Beauty is still in control ; she chooses her circumstances.
What is interesting about it?
By making choices and taking control of her circumstances, Beauty distinguishes herself from her older siblings, especially her sister who let their circumstances limit their choices; as though there is no possibility other than that their father die; they do not consider the possibility of sacrifice.
Why is it interesting?
Despite the fact that they would not change places — they do not see her as “ model” in a triangular structure of desire— Beauty’s sisters are jealous of beauty.
